


Friendly Fire

by originally



Series: Friendly Fire [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Blackwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-10 09:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3285137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian calls a ceasefire, and Blackwall learns that his feelings for the man are much more complicated than he realised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [kinkmeme prompt](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/11864.html?thread=46541144#t46541144): 'I liked how these two went from hating each other to at least tolerating each other. Let's go a little deeper and get some crushing, awkward flirting, and rolling in the hay!'
> 
> There will definitely be awkward crushing and hay rolls later on.
> 
> Contains spoilers for Blackwall's personal quest.

As he made his way up through the castle and up the stairs to the library, Blackwall couldn't help the feeling of unease that settled over him. It was foolish, but he felt a mad urge to run back to the barn and don his armour, as if that could protect him from judgement. Before, he had chosen to stay apart from other people for fear of somehow revealing his secret, but now he chose to stay away because venturing into the castle brought him naught but stares and whispers. Once, a messenger had spat at his feet. It was better, down in the barn with the horses, where he could pretend for a while that nothing had changed. Up here, he had to face his consequences head on. But, to his surprise, there were no stares and whispers. In fact, no one gave him as much as a second glance. He emerged at the library unscathed but wrong-footed.

The library itself proved another challenge. There were shelves upon shelves all around the room, rows of books that went on for seemingly miles, and he had no idea where to even begin. He floundered helplessly for a moment or two, seriously debating turning his tail and fleeing, when an amused voice broke into his reverie.

"Blackwall! Are you lost?"

He turned to find Dorian curled in a window seat between two of the rows of shelves, with a book in his hand and piles more of them surrounding him, illuminated by a shaft of morning sunlight that bathed his brown skin with a healthy glow. He had eschewed the leather-enforced robe and complicated array of buckles he wore in battle for a cloth tunic and simple, supple leather breeches, though the tunic was still in the Tevinter style and richly embroidered with a pattern of coloured silks, very unlike the robes the rebel mages wore. Blackwall found himself wondering, not for the first time, about his intricately groomed hair; was it oil that he used to keep it in place? Despite all the ways in which he stood out, however, Dorian looked at ease there.

"Cat got your tongue?" There was a gleam in Dorian's eyes as he fixed his gaze on Blackwall.

Blackwall shook his head to clear it. "Hello, Dorian. How are you?"

"Yes, yes," Dorian said dismissively, waving a hand. "Hello, yes, the weather is marvellous isn't it, how about this Inquisition we're having, hm?" His lips twitched into a familiar smirk. "Never mind all that, what brings you to the library? I may faint from the shock. I wasn't even sure you could read."

Blackwall scowled, but Dorian only quirked an eyebrow at him, waiting. "If you must know, I'm looking for a book," he said at last.

"Positively astonishing." Dorian's voice dripped with amused sarcasm, but he put down his own book and pushed himself to his feet with his usual lithe grace. "Well, let's see. We have texts as far as the eye can see on such important theological questions as whether Divine Justinia III preferred silk smallclothes, but very little in the way of anything useful."

"I—" Blackwall paused. Sighed. Oh well; in for a copper, in for a royal. "I was looking for a book on Warden history."

The briefest flicker of surprise passed over Dorian's features before he schooled them back into studied indifference. It was quite fascinating to watch.

"Indeed?"

"Yes, I—there's much I don't know. Warden Blackwall, he had some papers on him when he—when he died, but it's… I would know more, is all," he finished, hearing the note of defiance in his own voice. He lifted his chin, daring Dorian to make an issue of it. "I lived his life for many years. The least I can do is try to understand it properly. I realised at Adamant that there was something more to the Grey Wardens than bravery and chivalry. Something darker."

It was, perhaps, the most he had ever said to Dorian in one go, or, at least, the most that did not include an insult from either party. Much the same thought seemed to have occurred to Dorian himself, since he was looking at Blackwall as if he had never seen him before, with something akin to pity in his eyes.

"Can you help or not?" Blackwall said gruffly.

"I can try. There are some non-Chantry history books around here somewhere, and some of the volumes the Inquisition has received as gifts have yet to be catalogued. Helisma may have a better idea." He shuddered delicately, though for what reason Blackwall was uncertain.

It became clearer, however, when Dorian led him over to a different area of the library, occupied by a number of tables filled with mages poring over odd bits and pieces and occasionally firing tiny sparks of magic at them: strange orbs that glowed almost too brightly to look upon, brains and tongues and eyes pickled in jars, rows of teeth of varying sizes. Dorian bent down to examine an enormous dragon claw that had been neatly sliced in two, but straightened as a young mage approached them.

"Good morning, Helisma," he said politely. Blackwall saw his fingers twitch.

"Good morning, sers. Was there something you needed?" She had a soft Orlesian accent but her voice lacked any expression or inflection. It was unsettling, to say the least. Blackwall's eyes were drawn to the yellow sunburst tattooed on her forehead.

Dorian nodded. "Blackwall here was looking for a book on Grey Warden history and ritual. Did we have a copy of the Genitivi somewhere?" To Blackwall he added, "One of the few Chantry scholars I can stomach. Apparently he was an interesting fellow, despite being a monk."

"There is a copy in the collection of texts that King Alistair sent to us. One moment." She bustled away.

Blackwall turned to Dorian and said, softly, "Is she...?"

"Tranquil, yes. Hideous business. Ah, here we are," he said, as Helisma returned with a very large tome bound in rich, deep-red leather. Dorian took it and blew on the cover, so that a cloud of dust went up over the balcony railing and the gold-embossed lettering that read _The History of Grey Wardens in Ferelden_ became visible. He coughed. "Good grief, you'd almost think the King of Ferelden never reads."

"Thank you," Blackwall said to Helisma, who bowed and excused herself. He watched as she stopped at one of the tables to speak with a mage examining a chunk of what looked to have once been part of a wyvern. She looked no different from any other mage, apart from the tattoo.

"Well, here it is," Dorian said, handing him the book. "A bit of light reading for you."

"Thank you," Blackwall said again, but Dorian waved him off.

"No need to thank me. I'm grateful for anything that keeps me from having to read southerners' wildly inaccurate ideas about Tevinter." His tone was light, but there was clearly more than a grain of truth there.

"In that case, how about a drink in the Herald's?"

Maker's breath, where had that come from? That hadn't been what he'd intended to say at all.

Dorian laughed. "At this time of day? I'm not sure even I could stomach drinking Cabot's swill this early in the morning, and you know I'll drink anything." His smile was bright, though, when he touched Blackwall's arm and added, "Some other time, perhaps."

Blackwall fled.

*

For the time being, he decided, he would forego further expeditions into the castle. He still felt confused and conflicted about the way people had reacted to him. He had done terrible things; he deserved to be condemned and treated with contempt, not ignored and allowed to continue unmolested. Instead, each day after his morning training routine he settled onto one of the many wooden crates that were stacked in the barn and let himself be drawn into the book. As Dorian had suggested, Genitivi had turned out to be an engaging author, and his histories of the founding of the Wardens were fascinating.

Blackwall was immersed in an account of the Third Blight when he became aware of raised voices outside in the courtyard.

"—letting Magisters walk around freely, unsupervised! They would kill us all if given half a chance! This is an affront! Where are the templars?"

"I can assure you, I'm hardly in the habit of assaulting random clerics, which is more than can be said for Samson and his ilk!"

Dorian's voice, and he sounded rattled. Blackwall frowned and closed the book, pushing himself to his feet and heading for the door.

"How short these people's memories are! Have we forgotten Kirkwall? Have we forgotten Elthina? That is what comes of letting mages do as they will!" The speaker had a pronounced Starkhaven accent, and her voice was growing louder as she became more agitated. "The Imperium would have us all subjugated and enslaved if they could, ruled over by magic instead of served."

"I am not a Magister and I don't speak for all Tevinter, as presumably you do not speak for the entire Chantry. I have no interest at all in enslaving you."

Stepping outside, Blackwall took in the scene in front of him. There was Dorian, face to face with a woman garbed as a Revered Mother. Her face was bright red with anger and her eyes were narrowed as she glared at Dorian. Dorian, for his part, had lost all of his casual nonchalance: his eyes flashed angrily and his hands were balled into fists at his sides. A number of other clerics were milling about looking anxious, and the group was surrounded by soldiers armoured in white with Starkhaven insignia on their chests.

"What's going on here?" Blackwall said loudly, and several angry faces turned towards him. "Is there a problem?"

"The problem," the Revered Mother said, "is that the Inquisition apparently allows Tevinter Magisters to walk its fortress unchecked. We will soon be besieged by demons."

Dorian snorted in disgust, throwing his hands up. " _Fasta vass_! Demons! I am no more a threat to anyone here than you are, and I've certainly never done anything at all with a blighted _demon_."

"Dorian is a valued member of the Inquisition," Blackwall said, taking a step forward in the hopes of putting himself between Dorian and the soldiers, who had begun to shift restlessly and lay hands on their sword hilts. He did not doubt that Dorian could defend himself, but he would rather it didn't come to that. "The Inquisitor trusts him with her life, and that should be good enough for you."

The Mother looked Blackwall up and down, seeming to take him in properly for the first time. "Ha! Magisters and murderers too, it seems. It was a mistake to for Prince Sebastian to send us here."

Blackwall opened his mouth to argue, but found that he had no answer for that.

"Ah, you must be the delegation from Starkhaven." Commander Cullen had come striding across the courtyard, red faced and slightly flustered, and his voice broke the tension. "Come, come, the Ambassador is expecting you." He offered the Revered Mother his arm and steered her firmly towards the castle, throwing a pointed look over his shoulder as he left. "My men will be happy to offer your escort space to rest after your journey…"

Cullen's voice faded as the group moved away, and Blackwall found himself standing in the middle of the yard with Dorian and a crowd of curious gawkers, though they began to disperse once Blackwall glared at them. He made to offer Dorian a wry smile, but as he turned, he realised the man was almost hissing with anger.

"I was not in need of _rescuing_ , Blackwall!" Dorian spat the word 'rescuing' as if it meant something offensive. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"I know that," Blackwall said, stung. "I only wanted to help."

" _Kaffas_ , you're as bad as Cole," Dorian said, pacing now, with agitation evident in his every movement. His hands opened and closed as if he'd rather be holding a fireball in them. "I certainly don't need help from someone who has said much the same thing about ' _my kind'_ many times before, if you'll recall!"

"That's not—" Blackwall began, but Dorian held up a hand.

"Save it, please. I'm not in the mood to debate the dangers of mages with a liar who murdered _children_."

He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Blackwall reeling, with only the susurration of a hundred excited whispers for company.

*

The straw soldier bounced on his stake as Blackwall's sword cut into him again and again. The sack casing was split by now and the straw was spilling out onto the floor, but he found that he could not stop. Again and again and again he struck, finding his rhythm, first sword then shield, until his arms ached with it and there was nothing left of the target but tattered rags and a notched wooden stake standing forlornly in front of the practice yard wall.

"If you were pretending that was me, I think you can safely say I'm dead."

Blackwall grunted and didn't turn around. Right, left, sword thrust, shield bash. His shoulders were screaming at him but he wouldn't stop now. He focused on his breathing, and his movements. Right, left, slash, block—

"Blackwall!"

The hand on his shield arm made him whirl around, and he had Dorian pinned to the wall with his sword to his throat before he had even had time to process what he was doing.

"Maker's breath, Dorian!" he exclaimed, dropping his arms and sheathing the sword as quickly as possible. "I could have killed you."

"I probably deserved that," Dorian said wryly, letting his humming blue barrier dissipate and smoothing down his ruffled robes.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"No, no, it was my own fault. I should know better than to startle a man who's holding a sharp implement," Dorian said. "No harm done." He grinned suddenly. "Well, only my pride at any rate. You know, I always harboured a secret assumption that I could best you in a fight if push came to shove."

Blackwall raised his eyebrows. "'If push came to shove'?"

Dorian waved his hand carelessly. "If mage came to grief. If the Inquisition was a bit less welcoming to outsiders from Tevinter, no matter how much they were trying to help."

"You thought that the Inquisition might attack you?" Blackwall said, blindsided. He'd never considered it from Dorian's perspective before.

"Of course I did! I expected to be locked up in a dungeon somewhere and never heard from again at best, and at worst—well. You've heard the things that people say about me. You've said them yourself."

Blackwall opened his mouth to respond, but Dorian held up a hand.

"No, let me—that's actually what I came down here to say," he said, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. "I appreciate that you stood up for me. I didn't expect anyone to do that. I didn't mean those things, and I shouldn't have said them to you."

"You didn't say anything that wasn't true," said Blackwall bitterly. "People should say those things. I am those things. A liar. A murderer."

"Those are things that you've done. They're not things that you are," Dorian said, his voice softening. He rested his hand on Blackwall's arm—and when had he got so close? Blackwall was near enough to catch the warm, clean scent of Dorian's skin, perfumed with the oils that he used in his precious baths and tinged with the distinctive, post-storm aroma of magic. "I've known bad men, Blackwall, hundreds of them. You're not a bad man. In everything you've done since, you strive to be a good man. That's what matters."

They were teetering on the edge of something. Blackwall's blood was rushing in his ears as he gazed at Dorian's earnest, handsome face.

Dorian suddenly gave a self-deprecating sort of shrug and stepped away. "Anyway. If you still want me to fuck off back to Tevinter, then we need say no more. But I rather think I'd like that drink now, if the offer still stands?"

Blackwall nodded jerkily. Dorian's eyes twinkled as he stuck out his hand.

"Truce?"

"Truce," Blackwall agreed, ignoring the sensation of a stone in his belly when he reached out his own hand and shook the proffered one, Dorian's long, clever fingers warm against his palm.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"That’s kind of the thing about temptation, isn’t it?” He drummed his fingers on the table, suddenly restless. “It’s tempting. That’s pretty much the point.”_

"We caused quite the sensation today, it seems," Dorian said, over his tankard. "Out in the yard. I'm not sure if anything has generated that much gossip since our excursion to Halamshiral."

Blackwall had already noticed the stares and whispers that a number of tavern patrons had not even troubled themselves to hide. It was, after all, what he had wished for, so he could hardly complain about it now.

"I suppose a bit of excitement now and then is good," he said. "Shakes things up."

Dorian laughed. "There is a war on, you know. One would think that was excitement enough. And anyway, your friend Sera already shakes things up more than anyone really needs."

Blackwall tried to smile, but, judging by Dorian's raised eyebrow, it had come out as something closer to a grimace.

"What?"

"Me and Sera... it's been different. Since I came back from Val Royeaux. I've been different."

"Well, of course it has," Dorian said, in a tone that suggested he were explaining something simple to a small child. "You've been spending even more time alone with the horses than usual, so it's small wonder. You didn't give her chance to do anything."

"I—huh. Maybe you're right," Blackwall said, struck by the obviousness of the statement now Dorian had pointed it out in his take-no-prisoners way.

"Of course I'm right," said Dorian airily. "I'm always right, and if you could remember that, it would save us a lot of time bickering."

"You can't fool me. Bickering is your favourite pastime." Blackwall grinned at him, and stood up to fetch another round.

Much later, after 'a drink' had inevitably morphed into another and then another and then another, Blackwall was sitting with his head pillowed on his hands, contemplating the drawbacks of just going to sleep right then and there.

"I lied, you know." Dorian's voice was slightly slurred, which was hardly surprising if the number of empty tankards on their table were anything to judge by.

Blackwall raised his head to look at him, though his eyes felt heavy and everything was fuzzy at the edges.

"What do you mean?"

"Out there. About demons. I did meet one once, in the Fade, when I was younger. Desire demon. Charming fellow."

Blackwall's belly gave a funny swoop at the thought of what form Dorian's desire might take. Once, when they'd been trekking out in that disgusting mire, he'd tried very hard not to listen to Cole describing what had clearly been an infatuation of Dorian's: a man with golden skin and exotic beauty. Dorian had been quiet and closed off afterwards, but the image of the two of them had stuck with Blackwall, even sometimes coming back to him, unbidden, in the dark of sleepless nights. He shook his head and dragged himself back to the now.

"What happened?" he asked, voice coming out gruffer than he expected.

"Oh, the usual. Mage meets demon, demon tempts mage. But..." Dorian's voice trailed off uncertainly. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. It's not something I usually go around announcing to people."

"You don't have to tell me. If there's one thing I know about, it's secrets."

"No!" Dorian burst out, a little too loudly, and now the stares were back. "No," he said again, at a more reasonable volume. "I want to talk about it. Is that strange? The Maker knows that I've been hiding it for far too long."

Blackwall looked at him steadily for a long moment, turning it over in his mind. "I suppose the other thing I know about is hiding," he said at last. "Sometimes it's better to come out into the open. No, I don't think it's strange."

"I was tempted," Dorian said quietly, "and I very nearly gave in."

There was a truly miserable expression on Dorian's face. He looked downtrodden and somehow much, much smaller, hunched over himself with none of his usual poise and confidence evident. Blackwall had to fight the bizarre urge to gather him up in his arms, which surely would have earned him a fireball to the face for his troubles; he settled instead for patting Dorian awkwardly on the back.

"It's so foolish!" Dorian said, the words tumbling out of him. "He was lovely, and I was so grateful that a man had shown interest, grateful that he'd smiled at me and touched my hand and told me I was handsome. I _knew_ it was a demon. I knew it, and I still played along, and I almost let him possess me. All for what? Gratitude! To a demon, Blackwall. I'm still nothing but a fool, and deep down in my heart of hearts, I worry that they're right."

He didn't need to ask who. "Dorian," he said slowly, choosing his words with deliberate care, "I'm not a mage so maybe I don't understand, but it seems to me that what's important here is that you _didn't_ give in. 'Almost' doesn't count, not on the battlefield and not in the Fade. That's kind of the thing about temptation, isn't it?" He drummed his fingers on the table, suddenly restless. "It's tempting. That's pretty much the point."

Dorian laughed, a thin sound but genuine all the same. "You do have quite the way with words. I suppose you're right—much as that pains me to say, I hope you know. But what happens the next time I'm tempted?" He gave Blackwall a strange, sidelong glance.

"You'll resist, of course. You've done it before." Blackwall stared at Dorian curiously. "Are you often tempted by demons?"

"Not demons, no. Not often." He sighed, and dropped his head down onto the table with a quiet thunk.

Blackwall felt a sudden surge of fondness for the man. He swallowed and said, "Come on. Let's get you back to your quarters. Josephine will have my guts for garters if we cause another scene."

*

"So, looks like I wasted my time with that peach, then. It should have been a banana all along, yeah?"

"What?"

He put down his book and looked up to see Sera in the doorway, grinning at him. She had a brace of dead birds of different types slung over her shoulder, but Blackwall had learned it was best not to ask about these things.

"I saw you. Last night. You and sparkly-arse getting all cosy in the tavern." She laughed and made an explicit gesture, accompanied by a noise that made Blackwall splutter and dearly hope that he would never have to suffer through an explanation for it.

"It's not like that," he said, frowning at her. "We're friends."

"Friends, right. Since when are you friends with poncy-arsed mages who think the likes of you and me aren't fit to lick their boots? Or their arses. Whatever." She wasn't meeting his eye; instead, she was fiddling with the carved griffon on the workbench, the one he'd thrown across the room in a fit of rage and then put back up there to start over. It had some bits missing now, jagged edges in need of smoothing. Sera traced them with her fingers, heedless of splinters.

"I don't think he thinks that," Blackwall said. "Or maybe he did, but not any more."

Sera's head snapped round, her eyes wide. "Shite, look at you. I was joking but you really do want to lick his arse. Oh yuck, I wonder if the beard would get in the way," she added, suddenly thoughtful.

Blackwall's face grew hot. "Maker's balls, Sera, can you stop talking about arses?"

She cackled and dropped the birds on the workbench, moving to sit down on the box next to him. She leaned into his side and rested her head on his shoulder. Blackwall took a deep breath and let himself relax into her familiar touch. She was one of the few people who he'd allowed to touch him like that in years, friendly and caring and casual, and he felt a crashing sense of relief that she still wanted to.

"So..." she said, looking at him sideways, "d'you want to talk about it?"

"Sweet Andraste, no. I definitely do not."

"Thank shite for that," she said with a laugh. "I don't do talking, yeah? I do know where there's another beehive, if you fancy getting back at that Reviled Whats-her-tits."

"Thanks, Sera. That means a lot."

She was quiet for a moment, and then added, "You could ask Iron Bull about the banana thing. He'd probably show you. But he looks like he'd crush one, so you might want to watch out, right."

Blackwall shuddered, and knocked his shoulder against hers companionably. "I'll bear that in mind."

*

Being friends with Dorian turned out to be easier than he had thought it would be, and, in many respects, not too different from not being friends with Dorian. They still bickered and threw insults at each other whenever they were out adventuring with the Inquisitor, but now every time Dorian said 'that hairy lummox', he did it with a trace of affection in his voice, and every time Blackwall complained about Dorian's fussiness, he did it on the understanding that, whatever protests he might make, Dorian was genuinely fond of a number of what he referred to as 'appalling southern vulgarities'. An evening in Redcliffe where Dorian had turned down a bottle of Orlesian red in favour of Fereldan beer, giving some spurious complaint about the vintage, had come as something of a revelation to Blackwall, though he had just grinned and said nothing. But since Sera had given voice to that little ball of heat in his chest that he'd been resisting admitting even to himself, it was harder in some ways, too.

There had been the time that Blackwall had been so caught up in admiring Dorian's form in combat—his graceful spins and deft sidesteps, the staff he wielded like an extension of his own body, the crackle and fizz of the magic he poured through it—that he had almost had his head taken off by an Avvar with a huge hammer. Dorian had frozen the creature with a blast of ice just before it could swing, and Blackwall had turned horrified eyes on him when he realised what had happened.

"Losing your edge, Blackwall?" he'd called blithely, as Blackwall savagely shattered the thing with a blow from his shield, but Blackwall knew he hadn't imagined the flash of panic he'd seen on Dorian's face.

Then there had been the time that he'd gone to Dorian's quarters to ask him a question about Wardens and magic and had caught him fresh from the bath, dressed in a simple linen shirt that revealed acres of flawless brown skin, looking young and soft and beautiful with his dark hair flat and damp around his ears. The sight of him stripped of all of the trappings of his confidence had so disarmed Blackwall that he'd stammered an excuse and retreated back to the stables in confusion. He felt ridiculous, like a young girl dealing with her first sparks of attraction to a more sophisticated boy: clumsy and plain and nowhere near good enough.

But above all else, for a man who had lived for years in the wilderness, avoiding contact with other people for months on end in case they should discover his secret, this was a strange experience indeed: he had two good friends who knew the truth and who liked him anyway. He found that he wouldn't trade it for anything, awkward attractions and all.

*

"I've been wondering," Blackwall said, examining his cards closely. Not a bad hand, all told. "What did you actually do when you were back in Tevinter? It can't have all been Wicked Grace and pickling yourself in Antivan brandy." He gestured around the table at the evidence of their night of cards and drinking in Dorian's quarters.

Dorian raised his eyebrows. "Can't it? That sounds like a most enjoyable way to pass one's time."

"You don't think you might get bored?"

"My dear Blackwall, a handsome fellow such as myself would never want for engaging Wicked Grace partners, and the brandy would just help to, ah, grease the wheels, as it were. Not boring at all."

Blackwall coughed and Dorian suddenly seemed to realise what he'd implied.

"Ah—not that that's what this is, clearly, since we're not using what Varric so charmingly refers to as 'Rivain rules'."

"We could," Blackwall said boldly, surprising himself.

"Could use Rivain rules? Now there's a thought," said Dorian, and smirked at him. "Imagine the talk if you were to emerge from my quarters naked. I'm quite certain Mother Giselle would faint clean away."

Blackwall snorted. "You're assuming you'd win."

"Of course I'd win. I've spent my days practicing whilst marinating in brandy, obviously."

"What did you really do?" Blackwall pressed, curious about Dorian's evasiveness.

Dorian sighed loudly and reached for the bottle. "Do you really want me to talk about Tevinter? As I recall, you've been rather vocal on the subject of how terrible it is." He poured himself a large measure of brandy and took a sip.

"I, ah—I like listening to you talk about yourself," Blackwall said, and immediately wished he could take it back. He hoped his beard and the flickering candlelight would hide any blush that might have crept up his cheeks.

Dorian shot him a look over his glass, and shrugged carelessly. "Well, it is my favourite subject, after all," he said, but Blackwall had spent enough time with the man by now to hear the note of insecurity under the flippancy.

"You don't have to tell me," Blackwall said, reaching for his own drink. "We can just play."

"It's just," Dorian began, and grimaced. "It's just that it's a strange feeling, to be homesick for a place that you don't much approve of and where you never felt accepted. It makes me feel ungrateful."

"Ungrateful?" Blackwall asked, leaning forward on his elbows, cards all but forgotten.

Dorian made a frustrated noise. "It sounds idiotic when you say it like that, but—the Inquisitor has accepted things about me that my own father refused to. _Venhedis_ , she even took me in when my mentor went insane and almost destroyed the world. She never once questioned me, and she never told me I was wrong for wanting what I want."

"You mean preferring men?" Blackwall asked, feeling foolish. He'd known that there had been some sort of kerfuffle with Dorian's father, but not the cause of it. Now the story about the desire demon slotted into place for him in the compelling puzzle that was Dorian Pavus.

"Of course that's what I mean," Dorian snapped, eyes averted down towards the table and fingers worrying the label on the brandy bottle. He added, more softly, "I don't expect you to understand, since you're not from Tevinter and you enjoy the company of women, but..."

He trailed off. It was on the tip of Blackwall's tongue to correct him. He might also enjoy women, but he had had to admit to himself in recent times that this was not a sole preference. He looked at Dorian: the broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, the carefully-styled hair and moustache, the way the tilt of his head revealed a strong jawline that Blackwall desperately wanted to kiss, his long fingers picking at the bottle when Blackwall had spent so much time watching them work intricate spells and wishing he could feel those hands on him instead. There was nothing feminine about him, and yet Blackwall wanted. Badly.

"Anyway," Dorian went on, and the moment was lost. "Like I said, it makes me feel ungrateful. I've never felt I belonged anywhere as strongly as I belong in the Inquisition, and Tevinter has all sorts of problems, I realise that, but sometimes I miss it something fierce. The south is damp and it smells of dog and my feet are always cold," he finished in a rush.

Blackwall laughed. "Sera likes knitting. She could make you some socks."

Dorian's head snapped up and he eyed Blackwall as if he couldn't work out if that were a joke or not. "Does she really?"

"She says it's like stabby sewing."

Dorian laughed, and picked up his cards. "Shall we?"

He clearly considered the topic closed. They continued the game with no further talk of Dorian's father, or of Tevinter, or of preferences, and Blackwall cursed himself for his cowardice.

The Sera in his head said, "Piss-poor effort, that."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Don't worry about it, Sparkler. It's just his way. He's all talk and no trousers."_
> 
> _Dorian winked at Varric. "Definitely not my type, then."_

"And finally, it seems that Starkhaven has given us an ultimatum," the Inquisitor said, amusement tinging her voice. A number of the inner circle were gathered around a table in the newly-finished tower for a briefing, in varying states of concentration. Cole was giving a very good impression of being alert and attentive; Sera was making rude faces at him behind his back. Dorian was draped languidly over his chair like the roguish hero in the romance novels that Blackwall definitely did not borrow from Cassandra, and was apparently intently studying his own fingernails.

At the Inquisitor's pronouncement, Varric snorted and sat back in his seat. "Well, shit. What does that pious nug-humper want now?"

"Apparently, their diplomatic delegation was troubled by the presence of so-called Tevinter Magisters in our ranks, and Prince Sebastian has refused to aid the Inquisition any further until we 'deal with' Dorian, it says here." She frowned down at the parchment in her hands.

"'Deal with' me? Was the word 'execute' too difficult for him to spell?" Dorian said. Blackwall shot him a glance. He always cloaked himself in quips like armour, and it was clear that his mask was firmly in place now; that incident had troubled him more than he wanted to let on.

"Ah, no," the Inquisitor said, biting her lip. "It actually—well, and I quote, 'we understand that the man may be of some residual usefulness, so we would be satisfied knowing that the Rite of Tranquility had been performed'."

"What, make him one of those weirdo mages with creepy eyes and no feelings? Nah, yuck," Sera said, wrinkling her nose, "that's worse than proper mages."

Blackwall had been watching Dorian carefully. There had been the briefest flicker of distress—a widening of his eyes, a twitch of his lips—but it was gone almost before it was there. Then Dorian shook his head and drawled, "Residual usefulness?" in an affronted tone, with that familiar smirk back in place.

"Don't worry about it, Sparkler. It's just his way. He's all talk and no trousers."

Dorian winked at Varric. "Definitely not my type, then."

"You know him?" Blackwall asked, leaning forward and doing his best not to think about what _was_ Dorian's type. "This Prince Sebastian?"

Varric turned to look at him, steepling his fingers together with his elbows on the table. "Oh yeah, I always forget you've been a fugitive hermit for however many years."

Blackwall flinched. He wasn't sure he would ever be used to people mentioning his past so casually, as if it didn't matter.

"He was one of Hawke's, and I use this term loosely, friends," Varric finished.

"I thought the Champion was a mage," Blackwall said. Maker's breath, it was hard to remember which of Varric's stories were real and which were invented from whole cloth, but he'd definitely seen a staff at Adamant. "He hates mages but he still followed Hawke?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Blackwall saw Dorian frown.

Varric shrugged. "Yeah, it was kind of a thing. They never really saw eye to eye, and after Bl—after Anders did what he did, he's had a real nug in his breeches about mage freedom."

" _What was that noise? Stone rains down, dust in my eyes, no no no, Blondie, what have you done? Choir-boy's got an arrow nocked, shit, this could go bad. Did Hawke know? Please, Hawke, say you didn't know._ "

Cole stared at Varric from under his hat, his big eyes wide. Blackwall hoped, incongruously but with a sudden fervour, that none of his thoughts about Dorian were attached to anything painful that Cole could pull out. Those belonged to him, bright spots in a morass of darkness; the Maker knew that there was enough else for Cole to take instead.

After a long pause, Varric said, "Uh, yeah, Kid. That's the one." He picked at a splinter in the table, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"As fascinating as the inside of Varric's mind undoubtedly is," Dorian said loudly, sounding bored, "I'd quite like to know whether you're planning to make me Tranquil, Inquisitor. Because, if I can speak to my own punishment, I'd frankly rather you took off my head and be done with it."

Flippancy again, covering for sincerity, and Blackwall felt those words like a physical blow. A memory flashed behind his eyes, as clear as if Cole had plucked it out and laid it bare in front of him for everyone to hear: himself on his knees in front of the Inquisitor, mired in self-loathing, craving punishment, begging for death like a pitiful snivelling coward, weak, _weak_. Wanting and dreading that the world would see him for what he was. It wasn't right that people should forget his crimes so easily but demand that Dorian be destroyed for doing nothing but existing.

"Andraste's frilly knickers, Dorian, of course I don't intend to do anything of the sort," the Inquisitor was saying, and Blackwall had to pull himself together. This was important. "It's a ridiculous request and we are not that badly in need of Starkhaven's help."

Lady Josephine, who had been following the whole exchange with a furrowed brow, nodded. "Very well, Inquisitor, I will write to Prince Sebastian and inform him of your response."

Sera cackled. "Tell him to stuff it up his arse. Or maybe, I dunno, we could put an actual nug in his breeches. That would be good for a laugh."

"Tactfully," Josephine said, firmly.

Blackwall stayed in his chair for a long time after everyone else had left. Dorian gave him a questioning look and a now-familiar touch to the arm before he too left him alone to brood.

*

He avoided Dorian after that. How could he have let himself forget? There should be no brightness, not for him. He redoubled his efforts to take his punishment: combed through the history books and artefacts he'd gathered from Helisma for any information on what a Joining might entail, and even gone so far as to haltingly ask Leliana if she knew where the Fereldan Wardens were. She'd hummed non-committally and said that she would get in touch with Alistair, easily, as if she weren't talking about the King. He'd spent the rest of the time holed up and brooding. Sera had stopped coming around again after he'd snapped at her one time too many, though he'd found his pallet soaked in custard the next evening, which he supposed, in a way, showed she still cared.

He put the griffon carving away, shoved behind a pile of horse tack where he didn't have to look at it, and began carving other things instead, abstract, horrifying, twisted things that he always threw into the fire afterwards. He was working on one of these when the creak of the door made him look up.

Dorian. Dressed in his leathers with his staff strapped to his back as if he expected to be attacked, looking around Blackwall's hideaway with his moustache twitching as he wrinkled his nose in distaste. He caught Blackwall's eye and his expression bloomed into something warmer.

"Have I done something to offend you, Blackwall, or did you just finally get tired of all the tavern girls looking at me instead of you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Blackwall said, looking back down at the carving.

"Oh, don't give me that. You've forced me to come down here, where I apparently risk life and limb and the wrath of shrivelled-up, pious old hens just for setting foot, and, worse, getting Maker-knows-what on my boots." He lifted a foot as if to prove his point. "What is wrong with you?"

Everything. "Nothing."

"Blackwall, I—what in the Maker's name are you doing?"

"I like to keep my hands busy," he said defensively.

Dorian raised his eyebrows and strode across the room to examine the carving, bending over it and carelessly draping himself across Blackwall as he took a better look. Blackwall took a step back, his heart beating in his throat; his skin burned where Dorian had brushed it. Dorian's expression grew shuttered as he noticed Blackwall move away. He straightened up.

"Forgive my asking, but what exactly is it?"

"It's—it's not really anything. I don't know."

"So, you're hiding down here carving nothing to 'keep your hands busy'?" Dorian said incredulously, giving the sentence a far more salacious tone than Blackwall thought it really warranted. "I can think of many more interesting things to do with one's hands."

Blackwall knew he must be blushing crimson. "What are you—" he started, and Dorian laughed.

"Calm yourself. I wasn't suggesting anything quite so, ah, hands on, as it were. I actually thought we might spar."

"Spar?" Had he heard that correctly?

"Yes, that thing you do with weapons?" Dorian said, rolling his eyes. "After you nearly decapitated me, I've been thinking that I need to learn how to properly fight a warrior. And," he added, in a slightly less sure tone, "well, truth be told, I thought it might help you to get over whatever I've done to send you scurrying back into your hole." He paused and looked at Blackwall with an earnest expression that Blackwall had never seen before. "I know you've been going to the library, so it's just me you've been avoiding. I talked to Helisma."

"I wasn't—it's not just you," Blackwall mumbled.

"Ha! So there is something wrong," Dorian said triumphantly. "Come on, don't you want the chance to pin me to a wall again?"

Blackwall spluttered, and Dorian laughed and tossed him a wink. He picked up his shield and tried not to stare at the way that leather armour clung to Dorian as he walked away.

*

The training sword felt strange in his hand—the wrong size, the wrong weight—but he wasn't going to risk using anything sharper, no matter how much Dorian tutted and said he was capable of taking it, thank you very much.

"Well, you're not going to use a fireball on me, are you?" Blackwall said in exasperation. "This is how sparring works. Surely you've done it before."

"Not as often as you might think," Dorian muttered, but he hefted his staff and dropped into a combat stance regardless. He paced through a series of movements, twirling the staff in his hands, spins, lunges, sidesteps, counters. Blackwall couldn't help but stop and watch him; the man was always so beautiful in motion, even without the brilliant flashes of magic that usually accompanied it.

"What are you waiting for, a gilt-edged invitation?" Dorian called. "This isn't Antiva."

Blackwall raised his shield and took a step forward.

Many of the mages that Blackwall had fought in the past had stood still and relied on their magic to keep enemies at distance, but Dorian was quick and light on his feet, twisting out of Blackwall's reach with a dancer's grace. Blackwall felt slow and lumbering in comparison, surefooted but heavy. All the time he had spent watching Dorian fight, however, had given him an advantage: he knew his tricks. When Dorian's staff span low to take out Blackwall's legs, his shield was there to block it. When Dorian faked left, Blackwall followed him right. When Dorian pointed his staff for what would undoubtedly have been an ice spell had magic been involved, Blackwall already had his shield in place, angled downwards for deflection the way Cullen taught his templar recruits. Dorian huffed and sidestepped him. There was a smattering of applause; Blackwall turned, confused, to see that, once again, he and Dorian had drawn a crowd of curious onlookers.

"Careful, Blackwall," Dorian said, closer than he expected, and the staff thumped against the padding on Blackwall's surcoat-clad arm. "That's one for me. Don't get too distracted." He grinned wolfishly and danced away again. Blackwall grunted and followed.

The unexpected thing was that Dorian seemed to know all of Blackwall's best tricks as well. All of his feints were anticipated. The shield bash that usually managed to floor mages was neatly avoided. Almost all of his sword swings were parried, or dodged, or turned against him with a surprising strength that Blackwall hadn't realised Dorian possessed. It was exhilarating, to spar with an opponent who knew you so well; he had clearly been bluffing about not knowing how to fight a warrior.

They were both panting with exertion and a sheen of sweat glistened on Dorian's skin by the time one of Blackwall's sword swings finally found purchase on Dorian's torso.

"Ha!" he gasped, exulting in it, as the crowd made appreciative noises. "One for me."

Dorian laughed. "It'll take more than that to stop me, old man."

"Old man?" Blackwall said indignantly, aiming another shield blow at him. "I'm not that old."

"Ah, but in comparison with my youthful beauty, you are," Dorian said, bringing up his staff to parry Blackwall's lunge.

Blackwall snorted, using his momentum to push Dorian back. "Maker's breath, I've never met such a peacock before. Are you going to display your tail?"

"My dear Blackwall," Dorian said, eyes twinkling, "here? I'm shocked."

Blackwall missed his footing, went down hard on one knee, and Dorian's staff caught him a blow to the ribs. He cursed, and Dorian's laughter rang in his ears over the now-louder noise of their crowd of onlookers.

Using Dorian's mockery as a distraction, Blackwall swiped his legs out from under him with a backhanded pommel strike to the calf. He landed heavily in the dirt with a gasp, and Blackwall straddled him, putting his sword to his throat. The look of surprise on Dorian's face made him throw back his head and laugh.

"Looks like there's some life in the old dog yet," he said, not troubling to keep the pleased note out of his voice. He bent close to Dorian's ear, close enough to smell leather and oil and clean sweat, and said, "So, pup, do you yield?"

Dorian made a strangled noise, and Blackwall suddenly realised the position they were in. The armour Dorian was wearing fit him like a second skin and didn't leave much at all to the imagination: he was stiff. Blackwall blinked down at him in confusion, and in the instant that their eyes met, he could tell that Dorian knew he'd felt it.

"Yield," Dorian said quickly, and Blackwall rolled off him.

"That was—well," Dorian said, flustered, shouldering his staff again. "Some other time, Blackwall."

And almost before Blackwall could work out what had just happened, Dorian was making his way purposefully back towards the castle. Blackwall was left fending off a gaggle of Cullen's recruits that had crowded around to congratulate him, and wondering if Dorian had noticed that he had been just as affected.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dorian made a startled sound. "What are you doing?"_   
>  _"I don't have any grapes," Blackwall said, as if that explained everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some fairly tame foot massage stuff in this chapter, just in case that's a thing for anyone.

"So," Sera drawled, showing up in his quarters later that evening with their quarrel apparently forgotten, "word is, you fucked sparkly-arse in the middle of the practice yard. _Squelch_." She let out a peal of raucous laughter.

"Maker's bloody balls. Who told you that?"

"Everybody's talking about it," she said. "I bet he was all, ooh, Blackwall, your beard is so tough and manly, and you were like, mmm, Dorian, your staff is very big, I like your magic tool." She adopted ridiculous voices, one high-pitched and the other low and gruff.

"Nobody fucked anybody," Blackwall said firmly. "You can tell that to 'everybody'."

"But you wanted to, yeah?"

"No!" Blackwall groaned and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, yes. Maybe. Maker's breath, I don't know. It was just sparring."

"Sparring?" Sera said, and burst out laughing again. "Jousting. _Swordplay_."

"Stop it!" he said, and then looked at her slyly. "How's it going with you and that singer? She was singing your song again the other day."

That shut her up. "Piss off! Not my fault if she likes me, is it?" Only Sera could make 'like' sound disgusting. "I don't want any of this feelings shite, not like you. That's why I'm not going near, right?"

"Who says I want 'feelings shite'?"

"It's pissing obvious. Arse."

"Your arse," Blackwall said, and grinned at her. He'd become fond of this game.

"No, Dorian's arse! You'll tell me if he really can shoot sparkles out of it, yeah?"

"If I ever find out, I'll send a messenger along directly," he said drily.

She smiled brightly at him. "Ace. Hey, I thought up a new thingy to ask Solas, right..."

*

When Blackwall went up to the library to see Helisma the next day, Dorian was waiting for him, resting his arms on the balustrade and apparently very fascinated by the murals on the wall of Solas' study below. Blackwall allowed himself a few moments to admire the curve of Dorian's shapely arse in his leather breeches until Sera's comments from the night before came back to him and he had to turn a laugh into a cough, making his presence known.

"So, I heard an interesting rumour this morning," Dorian said, not turning.

Blackwall's heart sank. He was going to have words with Sera. "Hello, Dorian. Did you?"

"A little songbird tells me that you've been trying to track down the Wardens."

"Oh," Blackwall said, momentarily flummoxed. That was not what he had expected Dorian to say.

"Yes, oh. You've kept that quiet. Were you just going to steal off into the night with them without so much as a by your leave?"

"Of course not!" Blackwall said defensively. "I would have said goodbye. And anyway, I haven't even found them yet."

"It seems that King Alistair himself has been in touch. He said he's sent word to Amaranthine and they're going to 'ferret out' a senior Warden and send them along to the Inquisition to act as liaison after, ah, I believe the phrase used was 'that monumental Orlesian balls-up'? Such quaint ways of speaking you southerners have." Dorian's tone was light, but there was weight behind the words.

"Not all of us were raised to insult people in the politest possible way," Blackwall said mildly. "And just because you say 'balls' in Tevene, it doesn't mean you're not still saying 'balls'."

Dorian snorted. "I have never once said 'balls' in Tevene. Contrary to what you might think, I rarely talk about them. I occasionally might say 'shit', I'll grant you."

Blackwall moved to stand next to him, gazing down at the unfinished wall opposite. It was a riot of lines and colours, unclear for the moment what shape they might take. "Anyway, that's good."

"Saying 'shit'?"

Blackwall laughed. "No, the Wardens. It's my sentence, Dorian. I need to see it carried out." There was a sudden twist of trepidation in his belly.

"I suppose you do," Dorian said, and turned to look at him for the first time. Blackwall's breath was stolen by the sincerity in his eyes. "Will you leave with them, after?"

"I don't know," Blackwall said. "We might not even live through this to leave at all."

"Well, that's a cheerful thought," Dorian said, looking away. "I might need a drink to recover."

Blackwall laughed again. "I thought you didn't drink this early in the day."

"It's almost sundown, and there's a bottle of a very good Orlesian red that I 'liberated' from Halamshiral. I thought this was as good an occasion as any to celebrate."

"Celebrate?" Blackwall asked, confused.

"But of course," Dorian said, and his smile, when he turned it on Blackwall, was sharp and beautiful. "Doing your duty and all that rot, Warden Blackwall."

*

A fire had been lit in Dorian's quarters when they arrived, and the room was warm and inviting, plushly furnished with pieces that Blackwall couldn't help but wonder where Dorian had found the time to acquire: chairs with intricately embroidered seats; carpets covering the cold stone walls and floor to keep in the heat; wooden tables with carved, spindly legs. Dorian retrieved a bottle and two glasses from inside a cabinet and poured for each of them; the wine was very good, fruity and rich and full-bodied. As he often did unless they were playing cards, Dorian made for a spot on the floor directly in front of the fire, warm-blooded as he was.

Blackwall couldn't help his sharp little intake of breath as he sat down next to him, jostling his ribs. He couldn't see it himself, but he thought there must be a bruise on his back from their sparring session. Dorian gave him a pointed look.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, we're back to nothing! Come on, I saw you flinch. Did I do that? I know I had plenty of bruises myself."

"I always have bruises, Dorian," Blackwall said. "Comes with the territory."

"You mean you bravely soldier on, enduring without asking for help?"

"It's just bruises."

"I may not be as legendary a healer as the great Anders in Varric's tales, but I do know some basic spells, and, besides, I haven't blown up any chantries recently." Dorian smirked.  "Nor offered Cole the use of my body."

"Maker's balls," Blackwall said. "There's an image."

"Not that he'd know what to do with it," Dorian added tartly, and Blackwall grinned at him. "Fine, don't accept my help."

They sat in companionable silence for a while: Blackwall propped up against a fancy-looking armchair and Dorian sprawled on the hearthrug like a pleased cat, with his cold, bare feet in Blackwall's lap, which he had pronounced 'furnace-like'.

"Now, don't take this the wrong way," Dorian said eventually, "but when was the last time you took a bath?"

"I bathe!" Blackwall said indignantly. "I'm not as savage as you think I am."

"I don't mean sticking your head in the horse trough or whatever it is you— _fasta vass_ , Blackwall!" Dorian exclaimed, sitting up as Blackwall grimaced. "That was a joke. Please tell me you don't?"

Blackwall turned his face away. He was pragmatic, and he wasn't embarrassed about it—but Dorian's disbelieving needling sometimes found its way into little chinks in his armour that he hadn't realised he had.

"Barren and bleak as this appalling southern monstrosity of a fortress is, it does have bathtubs. There's no need to suffer stoically," Dorian said, nudging Blackwall gently with his foot.

"Cold water is good enough for me," Blackwall said. "It's bracing. I don't need all your oils and fancy smells."

"Of course you don't _need_ them. But warm water would be good for those bruises, and the oils, well, what is life without a few indulgences, hm?"

Suddenly it was hard to breathe. _Indulgences_ —hot baths, soft beds, Orlesian wine, charming company—those things belonged to another life, to Thom Rainier, not to Blackwall.

"If you're retreating into your 'undeserving' routine again, I shall kick you," Dorian said, with a perceptiveness that took Blackwall by surprise. "Don't think that I won't. I might even be forced to use the Tevene for 'balls' so you know that I'm serious."

Blackwall laughed, despite himself, allowing the darkness to recede again in the face of Dorian's relentless fire. "You should teach me some of those curses some time. It would drive Sera mad."

Dorian gave him a pleased smile. "Why, Blackwall, we'll make a 'Vint' of you yet."

"Maker forbid."

They were both quiet for a moment, before Blackwall said, "It can't all be indulgences, either."

Dorian narrowed his eyes. "Is that what you think of me?" he said sharply.

"No, I didn't mean—"

"No, I think you did. I'm well aware what people see when they look at me." The weight of Dorian's feet was suddenly gone from Blackwall's lap, and he found that he missed it. "Pampered Tevinter noble who's used to being fed peeled grapes and having his feet rubbed by slaves," Dorian went on. "Narcissistic, drunken hedonist who threw-over his family and his homeland and his _duty_ in favour of a few tumbles with men."

"No," Blackwall said fiercely. "That's not an indulgence. The slaves, the wine—but not the other part. That's who you are. It's not indulgent to not want to live a lie."

"Says the expert," Dorian said, and immediately softened when Blackwall flinched. "I'm sorry, that was unworthy. It's just... all this talk of Tranquility—my father—people keep wanting to take out those parts of me, and I don't know what would be left afterwards. I have to love myself, because no one else will."

In the shocked silence that followed that confession, Blackwall reached down and pulled Dorian's feet back into his lap.

Dorian made a startled sound. "What are you doing?"

"I don't have any grapes," Blackwall said, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did. He took one of Dorian's feet into his hands and pressed his thumbs into the ball of it, seeking out the knots and the tender places. The pleased noise that Dorian made was immensely gratifying.

"Blackwall—"

"Shush," he said. "Let me do this. I want to do this. Just pretend you're back in the Imperium and I'm some pretty elf boy."

Dorian huffed a laugh, but he gazed up at Blackwall through heavy-lidded eyes as Blackwall worked his fingers into the base of each toe in turn, drawing out satisfied little moans that made heat pool in his belly.

"I, ah," Dorian gasped, "I suppose I have been doing a deal more walking than I'm used to. _Kaffas_ , that feels good. Strong—strong hands. Big. Pretty elf boys don't have hands like that."

"If you're disappointed, I could fetch Solas."

Dorian's delighted laughter made Blackwall grin.

"Maker's balls, could you imagine? I prefer my men to have more hair, at any rate."

"Did you just say 'Maker's balls'?" Blackwall asked, amused. To his great astonishment, two points of colour appeared high on Dorian's cheeks. He hadn't known the man was capable of blushing.

"Surely not. Something so uncouth and southern would never pass my lips."

"Is that so?" Blackwall drawled, smirking down at him. Dorian's blush intensified, and he turned his head away. Blackwall couldn't help the little thrill he felt at beating him at his own game.

He moved his fingers down to press into Dorian's heel. Dorian let out a low moan, deep and guttural and unbearably erotic.

"Good?" Blackwall said. His voice sounded strangled even to his own ears.

Dorian looked at him and seemed to come to some internal decision. He moved his free foot to press against Blackwall's burgeoning erection and his eyes widened.

"So, I didn't imagine that yesterday," he said, voice surprisingly soft, gazing up at Blackwall with painful hope written all over his face. Maker, he looked young.

Blackwall shook his head, not quite trusting himself to open his mouth and not spill out some kind of embarrassing confession.

"Blackwall..."

He let Dorian's foot slip from his fingers and sat paralysed with want and indecision.

"I shouldn't."

"Because I'm a man?" Dorian asked quietly, the fire dimming in his eyes.

"No! Sweet Andraste, no, that's not what I meant," Blackwall said. "I haven't—before, I mean. But that's not—you're beautiful," he finished helplessly, "and I'm me, and all the things that I am."

"I'm not an innocent, Blackwall," Dorian said, pushing himself up onto his knees. "You're not going to corrupt me." He moved to kneel between Blackwall's spread legs. "I've killed as well, you know."

"That's not—"

"Maybe it's not, but it could be," Dorian said firmly. "All those Venatori—Tevinter mages, just like me. And I took pleasure in it. You didn't."

"They were evil—"

"Were they? How do you know?"

Firelight flickered across Dorian's face, making him look ethereal, like a Fade spirit, fleeting and intangible and dangerous, so dangerous.

"Dorian—"

" _Fasta vass_ , shut up—" Dorian exclaimed, and then his mouth was pressed to Blackwall's own, soft and tasting vaguely of wine. Blackwall embraced him, feeling lean, firm muscle under his clothes: all that hidden power even without the magic that lurked under the surface. He slipped one hand into Dorian's perfect hair and Dorian gasped softly against his mouth, bringing his own hands up to touch Blackwall, tangling in his hair and sliding up his back and making him shiver. He ran his tongue along the seam of Dorian's lips; Dorian opened for him so eagerly, trusting and pliant under his touch, and Blackwall was lost.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Who would have thought?" he said after a while, and tilted his head back again with a grin. "Noble Dorian of House Pavus: a squire and a manservant."_

One night of tender touches and fevered exploration was apparently all they were allowed for the moment, because the next morning, the Inquisitor took a party out to Sahrnia, including Blackwall. Dorian was to stay and continue his research into the name of Corypheus, and, in any case, the rumours of Samson and red lyrium were troubling and the Inquisitor was reluctant to expose the mages to it any more than necessary. Unfortunately, Iron Bull's opening conversational gambit when they were out on the road was, "hey, you and the Vint, huh?", and Blackwall could only brood confusedly over how everyone seemed to know. At least Cole wasn't with them; he was certainly grateful for small mercies. The lump of wood that he had stored in his pack next to his whetstone and his elfroot poultices began to take shape over the several days of their journey, whittled with his pocket knife sat by the fire, listening to Sera's bizarre and entertaining rants or the Inquisitor's good-natured questioning about Dorian, or lying in his tent by candlelight, listening to the sound of rain on canvas and Iron Bull's snores. He deflected their questions, though, about what it was or why he was making it.

It took them the better part of a week to sort out the red templar mess, and there were several more days of travelling before they returned to Skyhold, early in the evening, cold and bruised and exhausted, and, in Blackwall's case, head brimming with questions about the Grey Warden stronghold they'd uncovered. He returned to the barn to pore over the papers they'd found, hardly heeding his tiredness or the filthy state of his armour. He wasn't sure how long he sat there, absorbed, before he was interrupted.

"Hello Dorian, yes, I'm still alive and not lying dead in the snow in the middle of Emprise du Lion! It's marvellous to see you too."

He looked up to see Dorian standing in the doorway, moonlight casting his skin an eerie, ashy colour.

"Dorian!" Blackwall said, getting quickly to his feet. "Maker's breath, it is good to see you."

"Yes, that's what I said," Dorian said drily. "It would have been nice to hear you were all right from you, though, and not the Inquisitor. Especially when she smirks at me like that; it's unsettling."

Blackwall hesitated. He wasn't sure where they stood; nothing had been discussed, and perhaps two weeks apart had brought Dorian to his senses.

Dorian hesitated too, just for a moment, and then he crossed the room and said, "By the Maker, have you seen yourself? You look more like a bear than ever. I'm not even going to ask what this is all over your armour."

Blackwall grimaced. "Probably best not."

Dorian gave him a sideways look. "I, ah, I took the liberty of asking some of the servants to bring over a tub and some hot water."

"Dorian!" Blackwall said, irritated, though something fluttered in his belly at the idea that Dorian wanted to help.

"Yes, yes, I know you're invested in your stoic suffering," Dorian said, waving a hand, "but, well, I had rather thought we might—I'm not coming near you when you smell like that, is the point."

Blackwall grinned. "You missed me."

"I did nothing of the sort," Dorian protested, but his smile was warm. "I've been trying to get you acquainted with soap for months, if you'll recall. It's for the good of everyone."

They were interrupted by the arrival of a handful of servants with a large metal bathtub and several pitchers of boiled water, which they set down next to the firepit. They shot curious looks at Dorian and scurried away as soon as they were finished. Dorian slid the barn doors closed behind them.

"Aren't you worried that people will talk?" Blackwall said, after they'd left.

"I'm sure Vivienne would say that it's better to be talked about than not talked about," Dorian said airily, "and more to the point, I've been fending off stares and questions about you all the time you were away. Apparently they're already talking."

"Sorry," Blackwall said, though he wasn't entirely sure where the blame lay.

"Not to worry. It was quite refreshing to hear people talk about how poor, misguided Dorian has been led astray by a hardened criminal instead of how terrible an influence I was, for a change. Although I did also hear a rumour that I'd seduced you with magic." Again, there was the flippant tone but there was a trace of real hurt in Dorian's eyes.

Anger boiled in Blackwall, sudden and heated. "People said that?"

"It's of no consequence. Why are you still wearing this, anyway?" Dorian said, his fingernails making a dull thunk when he flicked them against Blackwall's armour. "Don't you have, I don't know, squires for that sort of thing?"

"I'm not a chevalier. Don't you think you would have seen a squire if I had one?" Blackwall said, disarmed by how quickly Dorian could change the subject.

"I bet the Commander has squires," Dorian said, and began to unfasten the buckles and straps holding Blackwall's pauldrons in place. "Scads of them. I bet he's got a whole crowd of lithe, supple adolescents, eager to please, kneeling in front of him all wide wet eyes and 'yes, Ser Cullen!'" He put the pauldrons aside and went to work on the breastplate with deft fingers.

"Maker's balls, Dorian," Blackwall said, anger forgotten. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or be scandalised.

Dorian's face was the picture of innocence. "Is that not how it works? Those Orlesian novels have been lying to me. I shall make a complaint."

"You seem to be squiring now," Blackwall pointed out, as Dorian bent to unfasten his greaves. "Were you planning on kneeling in front of me?"

"Bath first," Dorian said, looking up with a smirk. "Ser Blackwall." Blackwall's whole body went hot with anticipation.

Eventually, Dorian laid the last piece of Blackwall's plate aside whilst Blackwall took off his mail hauberk.

" _Fasta vass_ ," he muttered, turning back and plucking at Blackwall's undershirt, "how many layers does this have?"

"You're one to talk," Blackwall said. "All those extra buckles. Do they even serve a purpose?"

Dorian tutted, but his eyes darkened as he tugged Blackwall's shirt over his head and looked him up and down. "You should try the Iron Bull's armour style instead," he said, and ran his hand through the hair on Blackwall's chest, making him shiver and look away.

Blackwall's body had always been just a body, a tool honed and shaped like any other, too scarred and pitted to be any kind of object worthy of admiration but good enough to get the job done. Perhaps once he had preened when tavern wenches exclaimed over his muscles, but more recently his tumbles had been few and far between, and rarely involved doing more than unlacing his breeches. Nudity and Dorian's focused attention unbalanced him. He swallowed, and forced himself to look back down to where Dorian's darker hands stood out in contrast to Blackwall's pale, scarred skin.

After that, Dorian made quick work of Blackwall's breeches and smallclothes, batting Blackwall's hand away when he tried to do any of it himself. There was a moment, when Dorian's hand lingered on Blackwall's bare arse and he looked up with unbridled lust in his eyes, that Blackwall thought the bath might even be forgotten, but he knew he really did smell terrible after days of armoured marching, and eventually Dorian chivvied him over towards it like a mother hen.

The water had cooled, but Dorian conjured fire in his palm and pressed it to the metal. Blackwall found himself fascinated by the way the fire danced and threw strange shadows around the room, where not too long ago he would have cringed away from such a blatant, unselfconscious display of magic.

"Does it hurt?" he asked before he could stop himself, and immediately felt foolish.

Dorian looked at him in confusion. "Does what hurt?"

"Your fire."

Dorian's tone was gently mocking, but his expression was sincere enough. "No, it doesn't hurt. It's part of me. You might as well ask if breathing hurts."

"Sometimes it can," Blackwall said, but he climbed into the bath all the same and Dorian closed his hand on the fire, snuffing it out.

He had to admit that the warm water felt good; he couldn't help groaning and closing his eyes as he sat back. He dunked his head under the water, and when he resurfaced, he could hear Dorian's soft laughter.

"See? I knew you'd enjoy it once I got you here."

Suddenly, there were fingers combing through his hair. He opened his eyes and tilted his head back to look up at Dorian.

"What are you doing?"

Dorian had removed his tunic but kept his breeches, and Blackwall had a very attractive view of his bare chest, shaved and primped and pristine like everything else about the man. He had a bar of fragranced soap in one hand and a determined expression on his face.

"I'm dealing with this rats nest you call hair," Dorian said. "Obviously. And I mean that. I'm not actually convinced there aren't rats living in it. Or possibly nugs."

Blackwall snorted, but said nothing. The sensation of Dorian's clever fingers carefully untangling his hair and massaging his scalp was very pleasant indeed. He reached for a washcloth and began to slough the grime from his skin, letting the warm water soothe the tiredness in his limbs whilst Dorian's fingers made their way down from his head to his neck and shoulders and back, soaping his skin in relaxing circles and skating over bruises with the occasional tingle of healing magic, which Blackwall decided not to comment upon. Let the man think he was being subtle.

"Who would have thought?" he said after a while, and tilted his head back again with a grin. "Noble Dorian of House Pavus: a squire and a manservant."

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," Dorian said lightly, bringing his hands around to wash Blackwall's beard.

Blackwall grunted. "It's not that bad down here with us commoners, is it?"

It was a simple question but it hung in the air for a moment, and Blackwall knew he wasn't the only one who felt the weight of it.

"No," Dorian said eventually, a small smile playing at his lips. "No, it's not that bad."

*

To Dorian's endless dismay, Blackwall insisted on using clean, cold water to wash off the remnants of the soap and dirt. He made noises about how easy it would be for him to warm it up and you're missing the _point_ , Blackwall, but Blackwall felt renewed and eager for whatever came next and a cold bath had never bothered him before. He dried himself off with a soft cotton towel that Dorian must have brought with him, whilst Dorian himself sat on one of Blackwall's makeshift seats and watched him with unapologetic heat in his gaze. Blackwall bent his head to towel his hair dry, and when he looked up, Dorian was right in front of him. He tugged the towel from Blackwall's hands and dropped it carelessly to the ground, leaving him completely bare.

"I think that's enough," Dorian said, voice gone deeper than Blackwall had heard it before, and he stepped forward until their bodies were pressed flush together.

The kiss, when it came, had none of the hesitance and sweet fumbling of their last encounter. Dorian kissed him with a fervour, full of intent. His lips were searing against Blackwall's, and when he pressed his tongue into Blackwall's mouth, Blackwall submitted to him willingly. He tangled his hand in Dorian's ridiculous oiled hair, ruffling it, wanting to see him imperfect just this once. Dorian's own hands wandered, first firm against Blackwall's back and then lower, skating over his arse and coming to rest on his hips. Blackwall canted them forward, the leather of Dorian's breeches rough against his stiffening cock, and they both gasped.

Blackwall broke the kiss and moved to mouth along Dorian's jawline instead, feeling the rasp of evening stubble and tasting the faint trace of the herbs he used on his skin. He wanted to commit it all to memory, every inch of him, in case this was some kind of delirious fever dream and he was still back in the prison in Val Royeaux. He sucked a livid mark into the skin under Dorian's jaw, revelling in the moan he drew out.

"Lovely as this is," Dorian gasped, his fingers digging hard into Blackwall's hips, "perhaps we should take it to a bed?" He tilted his head, giving Blackwall better access to the beautiful column of his neck. "You, ah, you do have a bed, don't you?"

"Of course I have a bed," Blackwall said, though in truth it was more like a sack of straw on a wooden pallet, hardly the featherbed that Dorian was used to.

Getting up into the hayloft took longer than it should have, because neither man was willing to take his hands off the other. At one point, Dorian pinned him against the rough wooden wall of the staircase and followed one of Blackwall's scars with his mouth, pressing a trail of bruising, biting kisses down his chest that left him panting. In his turn, Blackwall pulled Dorian's breeches undone and down, kneeling to kiss the tender skin of his inner thigh in a way that made him gasp and buck his hips and swear in garbled Tevene.

When he saw the bed, however, and the window onto the elements, Dorian raised his eyebrows higher than Blackwall thought they should have been able to go and rounded on him with a look of pure exasperation.

" _Vishante kaffas_ , does your self-flagellation know no bounds? There are plenty of rooms in the castle you could have taken. How have you not frozen to death yet?"

Blackwall shrugged. "I don't much feel the cold."

"Well, I do," Dorian said, and shivered as if to prove his point.

Blackwall sat down on the pallet and tugged Dorian's hand to pull him down too. "Let's get you warmed up, then."

Dorian laughed and said, "Was that the best you've got?", but he went willingly enough, when it came down to it.

*

"Did people really say you seduced me with magic?" Blackwall said, afterwards, when they'd sated themselves with questing hands and hot, slick mouths; after Dorian had murmured orders at Blackwall in that low, charged voice, every inch the noble lordling; after Blackwall had feasted his eyes on Dorian's lithe form trembling above him, with his head thrown back in ecstasy and his nails digging red welts into the flesh of Blackwall's arms; after Dorian had collapsed down on top of him with an undignified grunt, and Blackwall had laughed, and thought on how one person could have so many different sides to them, and on the carving that sat almost finished in his pack.

"I don't think it was many people," Dorian said, his words muffled against Blackwall's chest.

Blackwall's hands roamed lazily over the smooth skin of Dorian's flank. "Still. You should tell them it was your lovely arse instead."

Dorian snorted. They were quiet for a few moments.

"Although, Sera does think you can shoot magic out of it."

Dorian's breathless laughter was music to Blackwall's ears.

*

Blackwall awoke with a start in the bright morning sunshine, with Dorian's naked, sleeping form still pressed against him under the pile of sacking that served as a blanket. He thought, for a moment, that the light had been what had roused him, until he saw a very amused-looking dwarf with a casteless brand and a suit of full griffon-emblazoned platemail standing at the top of the stairs.

"You must be Thom Rainier," she said. "I'm Sigrun."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Someone as rotten as Blackwall could never hope to hold on to someone so bright and shining, he'd known that from the start._

_A Warden_.

There was a long moment where Blackwall stared at Sigrun and she looked back at him expectantly. Then Dorian stirred, and made a noise of disgust at the flaking dried seed on his skin.

"Ugh. Why did you let me fall asleep like this? I'm becoming just as savage as y—oh. I see we have company."

The corners of Sigrun's lips twitched. "Good morning. Dorian, I take it?"

Dorian started. "Maker's breath, did they put up an announcement on the blasted chantry board?"

"Your Inquisitor mentioned that I might find the two of you together," Sigrun said. "I didn't think she meant it quite so, uh, literally."

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, my lady," Dorian said, and Blackwall saw his eyes flicker over the griffon armour.

"Oh! Warden-Constable Sigrun, out of Vigil's Keep." She dropped into a curtsey.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Dorian of House Pavus, as you have so astutely surmised. Well, I won't keep you from your Warden business," he said, the sudden shift to detached politeness and a cool tone making Blackwall blink in confusion. He stood without a trace of self-consciousness over his nudity and strode towards the stairs, pausing to collect his breeches and then turning to give a brisk nod, his eyes shuttered and his face an impassive mask. "Lady Sigrun. Blackwall."

"He's very handsome," Sigrun said after he'd left, her eyes wide. "Well done you." Blackwall laughed, but he had a sinking feeling that something had just shifted in entirely the wrong way.

"So," Sigrun said, clapping her hands and suddenly all business, "I hear you've been conscripted."

*

Later, after they'd decamped to the tavern ("Sorry, but it's very distracting to have this conversation when you're naked", she'd said, and taken her leave), Sigrun told him that she had come at King Alistair's request.

"It's all a sodding mess," she said. "We wanted to come before, when we heard what happened at Adamant, but Natia and I—the Warden-Commander, that is, or I suppose you know her as the Hero of Ferelden, though the ancestors know she hates that title—well, she's looking for something that could help with the Calling. You know about that already, right, with this Corypheus thing? To be honest, I don't quite get her obsession but..." She grimaced, and took a sip of ale. "Anyway, Alistair sent us word that the Inquisition had need of a Warden who knew something about anything. And so here's me." She grinned. "Not sure how much I do know, really. We've all kind of been making it up as we go along back in Amaranthine."

Blackwall stared at her, not sure he had completely followed her rambling speech. "But can you—you can do a Joining, aye?"

"Yep," she said cheerfully. "I've got all the mystical bits and bobs." She glanced at him sidelong. "Though I'm not supposed to tell you how it's done yet. Not until it's time."

A swelling feeling of relief warred with a sudden sense of anxiety. This was what he wanted, more than anything, but what he'd seen at Adamant: blood magic and human sacrifices, driven by foolhardy isolationism... if Wardens weren't the noble warriors he'd always thought, then what hope was there for his redemption? It had been one thing when this had all been academic, the promise of a punishment in some uncertain future that might never come if they all died to Corypheus. But here sat reality: a branded dwarf and an age-old ritual and Blackwall was suddenly afraid.

"When?" he asked.

"As soon as needed, really. Though," she said, shrewd-eyed, "I suppose you might want a day or two to set things in order. Just in case. It's... not everyone has what it takes to be a Warden."

"I do," Blackwall said firmly. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that. He could do it. He had been doing it for years.

"Well, we'll find out."

Blackwall hesitated, reluctant to give voice to the niggling thought that had been in the back of his mind since the Inquisitor had first passed the sentence. It had been a constant, too painful to examine closely because it was the thing that everything pivoted on.

"The Wardens do want to recruit me, don't they?" he said, voice not quite as steady as he would have liked. "After what I did? After—after Warden Blackwall died?"

"We're not choosy," Sigrun said, full of blunt honesty. "We can't afford to be. If you can pass the Joining, you're a Warden. That's all that matters, not what went before."

Blackwall swallowed thickly. It was what he'd always heard, but still. How could that be true for him? It was another thing that he would have to live with, either way.

"Anyway," Sigrun went on, "I'm going to be sticking around. I heard that there was already an archdemon involved once, so there could still be need of a Warden or two before all this is over." She shuddered. "Ugh. Humans ripping great big holes in the sky. It took me long enough to get used to it the way it was. Sodding blood mages."

"Mages aren't all bad," he said, without thinking.

Sigrun laughed. "Yes, I definitely saw your Dorian's good points this morning."

"Yes, well... I wouldn't say he's my Dorian," he said, thinking about Dorian's lean form pressed flush against him, face softened in sleep, and his closed off expression that morning when he'd seen Sigrun, and this confusing, undefined thing between them that made Blackwall's insides squirm to contemplate. "He belongs to himself."

"Cheer up. You'll belong with the Wardens soon enough," Sigrun said - but that statement did not offer him the solace it might have, once upon a time.

*

In the end, Sigrun had postponed the Joining for a week, to give her time to find others who were interested in becoming Warden recruits.

"The fake Calling has died down now, and we lost a lot of Wardens to this mess," she'd said frankly, sighing and running a hand through her hair. "We're not all idiots. And someone still needs to fight the darkspawn. The Warden-Commander—she feels responsibility for all this. The mage who started the rebellion was a Grey Warden, after all. He was... I knew him—them. A long time ago."

But that was all she would say on the topic of either Anders or the Hero of Ferelden, no matter how many curious questions Blackwall asked. Instead, she told him to spend time in preparation, though preparation for a ritual you knew nothing of was a difficult task. Nevertheless, he had the books and the Warden artefacts, so he dedicated the day to their study.

As the sun was slipping below the horizon, he sought out Dorian, though the man was to be found neither in the library nor in his quarters. He made his way to the Herald's Rest thinking to visit Sera instead, but when he arrived, there was Dorian, drinking with Bull's Chargers and already well into his cups if Blackwall was any judge: his face was ruddy and flushed with drink, his sweat-damp hair was beginning to curl softly on his forehead, and some of the strands of his moustache had broken loose of their usual regimented neatness. His laughter rang out above the noise of the rest of the tavern, and as Blackwall watched, he clapped Krem hard on the back and made him spit out a mouthful of wine. The Chargers roared with mirth. Blackwall's heart sank. He hadn't seen Dorian quite this drunk since that first night after their truce in the practice yard, when he'd spilled secrets over ale in such a small, sad voice. They'd shared drinks since then, of course, but only a little wine or beer to smooth the way of conversation, not drinking for oblivion. Clearly something was amiss here.

He made his way over to their table.

"Blackwall!" Bull said loudly. "I hear you're gonna be a real Grey Warden after all."

"Aye," Blackwall said, "that I am." Perhaps. If this Joining went to plan.

"A toast!" Dorian announced, voice slurred. "To Warden Thom. Scourge of darkspawn. Slayer of... something or other."

"I'll drink to that," Bull said, and the Chargers raised their tankards. "Especially that last part. Hey, Vint, you'll have to tell me if it feels different after. Fucking. You hear weird stuff about Wardens."

"You can try for yourself," Dorian said, waving his hand. "I'm not his keeper. It was a tumble or two, not one of Cassandra's turgid romance novels, thank the Maker." He took another swig of his drink.

"So you're not...?"

Dorian laughed. "Of course we're not."

Blackwall sucked in a breath. The words stung as if Dorian had struck him a blow—though, if he was truly honest with himself, he had been expecting them. That was partly why he hadn't asked Dorian where they stood: cowardice, and the certainty that where they stood was not love, not on Dorian's part at least. Someone as rotten as Blackwall could never hope to hold on to someone so bright and shining, he'd known that from the start. He wasn't worthy of him. He wondered what his expression looked like, however, because Bull was eyeing him curiously and a hush had fallen over the table. He dare not look at Dorian lest it be writ large across his face how deep his feelings ran.

"Huh," said Bull, into the awkward silence. "My mistake." He grinned at Blackwall, suddenly. "Hey, you ever feel inclined, you let me know. Never did it with a Warden before."

Blackwall tried to grin back, but his mouth didn't seem to want to work. "I'll... bear that in mind," he said, with some effort, and stood up abruptly, jostling the table and making tankards clink. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen. Ladies." Dalish raised her mug drunkenly in his direction, and Skinner shot him a poisonous look. "I have things to attend to."

And with one final glance at Dorian—who seemed oblivious to the effect his words had had, as he turned his back to Blackwall to strike up a conversation with Dalish—Blackwall did what he always did. He fled.

Thankfully, Sera was in her upstairs room, organising her cabinet of treasures and muttering to herself about the way that a chunk of drakestone felt under her fingers.

"Blackwall! Hey, that dwarf, right," she said, as he stood hesitating in the doorway. "Your Warden? She's pretty. You could put in a good word."

"She is that," Blackwall agreed. "I'll see what I can do." Sera deserved that much happiness, at least.

"Nice. Hey, d'you wanna help me put more lizards in Solas' bed? I found some better ones, really big ones, all purple and slimy." She laughed. "Bet you won't have time for lizards when you're off doing all your fancy Warden shite, so better do it now, yeah?" There was something strained in her tone that made him feel even worse.

"I—we could do that."

"What's wrong with you? Oh, fuck," Sera said, turning to look at him properly and making a face. "What've you done, you stupid tit? Told you not to mess about with that feelings shite."

"Sera," he said miserably, and she pulled him into a hug as the lump in his throat threatened to swallow him whole.

*

The wood he had been whittling was still in his pack when Blackwall returned to the barn, and he pulled it out and set it on his workbench. It had taken shape: the curve of the body, the point of the beak, the fold of a wing. There were several slots in its back where he could affix the tail feathers he had begun to carve, their designs intricate and delicate and coaxed into reality through careful application of his knife. It was solid and beautiful and he suddenly couldn't stand to look at it. He picked it up and hurled it into the fire, and watched as the flames licked and danced around the peacock's belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All that angst had to come to a head at some point for Thom "you should dump me" Rainier. This is not the end, though.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He had spent so long denying that part of himself, separating 'Blackwall' and 'Thom Rainier' into two men, each so very different._

Almost as soon as he had done it, Blackwall regretted throwing the carving. He strode over to the fire and grabbed a spare bit of firewood to fish out the peacock before it could properly catch. Tipping it onto the floor, he knelt to inspect the damage: the wood was blackened at the bottom, and one of the wings was beyond salvaging, but it was still relatively whole. He didn't know what to do with it now, so he let it sit there on the floor next to the firepit in a pile of ash and charcoal and sank down onto the floor next to it, to stare broodingly into the fire.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, mired in thoughts of Wardens and duty and punishment, but it was well past moonrise and the sky was black as pitch when he was disturbed by a dull thump that came from just outside. He was immediately on his guard: he had spent too long alone in the wilderness not to respond to strange sounds in the night, though he didn't wake as often now as he had when he had first joined the Inquisition back at Haven all those months ago, when every tiny noise and voice had had him bolt upright in his bedroll with his sword in hand. He picked up his sword now and made his way to the barn entrance.

There was someone sitting on the ground, slumped against the rough wooden wall of the barn, with a cloak pulled up around his head and his face pressed to his knees. The figure raised his head as Blackwall got closer.

"Blackwall? Is that you?" Dorian's voice was small and slurred, but there was no mistaking it.

"Dorian? Maker's balls, what are you doing out here?" Blackwall sheathed his sword and rushed over to where Dorian was huddled.

"Drank myself into a stupor." He made a pitiful noise.

"I can see that," Blackwall said, not unkindly. "That's what you get for drinking with Bull."

He crouched down to haul Dorian to his feet, and Dorian immediately threw his arms around him. Blackwall let out a surprised huff of breath and stood up again, dragging Dorian with him.

"Come on," he said, as Dorian whined, pressing his face into the crook of Blackwall's neck. "Dorian... we need to get you back to your quarters before you freeze to death."

Dorian gave a soft sigh, his breath warm against Blackwall's skin. "I'm at your quarters. You're always warm."

"And you're always cold," Blackwall said, fighting the urge to pull him closer. "This isn't where you want to be. You're drunk. Let's get you home."

"Not sure I know where that is," Dorian muttered, but he allowed Blackwall to steer him up towards the main hall anyway.

Blackwall was uncomfortably aware of Dorian's body draped against his as they made their way across the courtyard and up the stairs. He kept turning his face back into Blackwall's neck and pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses to his throat, and his hands kept roaming down over Blackwall's back. He was feverishly warm despite the coldness of the night. It was taking all of Blackwall's self-control not to give in, to press him back into the stone wall and ravish him the way he clearly wanted.

"Dorian, please," he begged eventually. "Don't."

Dorian looked up at him with guileless golden eyes. "Why?"

"Andraste preserve us," Blackwall said, and ran his hand through his hair. "You make a terrible drunk. Did you know that?"

"On the contrary," Dorian said, slurring the words. "I'm truly excellent at being drunk."

He was mercifully quiet for a while, until they reached the door to his quarters.

"I'm glad you're going to be a Warden," Dorian said softly, when Blackwall was fumbling with the lock.

"So am I." Even after everything, he was.

"It's good. Whatever happens, I still think you're a good man... Thom."

Dorian pronounced the name for the second time that evening and the sound of it was queer from his lips—though it still gave Blackwall pause to hear his given name from anyone, even himself. He had spent so long denying that part of himself, separating 'Blackwall' and 'Thom Rainier' into two men, each so very different: Blackwall, the gruff Warden, rugged and wild and steadfast, a good man who wouldn't know an Orlesian soiree if it bit him on the arse, and Thom Rainier, the captain of the guard who enjoyed dancing and fine wine and _indulgences_ , who played the Grand Game and lost his soul. But then Dorian had come along with his sharp words and sharper eyes and found all the fractured spots where they might be joined back together. He had insinuated himself into the gaps between the two like flames creeping over a log, flickering into hidden places and consuming all they touched, leaving it transformed.

"I—thanks," Blackwall said eventually, swallowing hard. There was so much sincerity in Dorian's eyes and he looked so much more attainable like this, with his hair mussed and face ruddy and clothes dishevelled, that Thom had to forcibly remind himself that Dorian didn't want more than friendship and casual tumbles. He'd made that perfectly clear. "We should—we're here. You should get some rest."

He helped Dorian inside and out of his cloak, and then helped him strip off his leathers with an air of detachment he didn't feel. Every glimpse of Dorian's skin, every time he caught his scent, every brush of their fingers was a reminder of the things he wanted but couldn't have. He should be grateful just for Dorian's friendship, and he wished he could accept what Dorian was offering, but he didn't know how to take only that without wanting and hoping for more. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of battling Dorian's wandering hands, Thom got him manhandled into bed. He pressed a fleeting kiss to his hairline and then lingered in the doorway for a heartbeat or two before returning to the barn, heavy-hearted.

*

When footsteps sounded at the barn door a couple of days later, Blackwall looked up expecting to see Sigrun or Sera, but instead there stood a very contrite-looking Dorian, back to his usual perfectly-primped self with his lips quirked in a wry smile.

"I've, ah—I've come to apologise for my shameful display the other day," he said. "I can't remember much of what happened after I left the tavern, but I do seem to recall coming here, and I somehow awoke in my own bed. I presume I have you to thank for that?" He gave a small smile.

"There's no need to apologise," Blackwall said gruffly. "What are friends for if not to sort you out when you've had one too many?"

"Friends," Dorian said softly, as if he were testing how the word felt in his mouth. "Yes, I suppose we are."

Blackwall shot him a look, stung. "Did you think we weren't?"

"I, well—" Dorian waved a hand helplessly. "I did, but it's nice to hear the word out loud. I don't have a lot of friends, in case you haven't noticed. There's—there was Felix, and then there's the Inquisitor... and now there's you."

"You could try Sera," Blackwall said, unsure how to put into words the things he really wanted to say. "She's got a heart of gold once you get past all the 'shites' and 'arses', and she does keep things interesting."

Dorian gave him an appalled look that made Blackwall laugh. "She hates mages _and_ nobles. I'd get an arrow to the face within thirty heartbeats."

"She's not that bad. And you don't agree with how they do things in Tevinter. That counts for something."

"I suppose it does," Dorian said. "Anyway, I'm still sorry. I—I shouldn't have lost control like that. It was unseemly."

"I don't mind. I _have_ seen you drunk before," Blackwall said slowly, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something.

"I don't mean—never mind." Dorian's expression was unreadable for a moment, and then he visibly made an effort to pull himself together, setting his mask in place. "So, tell me about the Wardens," he said brightly. "Do you know any more about this Joining business?"

"No more than I did before," Blackwall said, pleased that Dorian still wanted to talk as friends. "I know that they make recruits do something dangerous and not all of them survive. I don't even know if it's magic or just ritual."

"Fascinating," Dorian said, and he did sound genuinely fascinated. "I wonder if—no, you're not a mage. You don't want to hear me talk about thaumaturgical theory."

Blackwall grinned at him. "I'd like to hear it, but I can't promise I'll understand it."

Dorian smiled, the first time Blackwall had seen a real smile from him since Dorian had left his bed, and pulled up one of the crate-chairs. "Well," he began, his face lighting up as he spoke, "you hear all kinds of tales about Wardens, yes? Their exceptional strength and stamina, for one thing? You must have noticed that when we, ah, when we fought them."

As he'd predicted, Blackwall couldn't follow all of the intricacies of Dorian's magical analysis but he nodded along anyway, enjoying watching and listening to him: the way that he waved his hands when he was outlining a point, or the brightness in his eyes and the excitement in his voice when he discussed the differences between one theorist or another. His intellect was as quick as his wit, and Blackwall thought, not for the first time, that he belonged in an ivory tower somewhere developing theories of magic, not traipsing around the Orlesian countryside chasing after darkspawn and mad templars.

During a lull in Dorian's monologue, Blackwall said, "Will you go back?"

"Hmm?"

"To Tevinter. Afterwards."

"Well, that is rather the question, isn't it?" Dorian said, leaning forward in his seat. "I don't want to live in Tevinter as it is now, but I don't want to give up on it either. I do love my homeland, despite the fact that it can be rather hard to like."

"Are there Magisters who would support change?"

"Well, I presume there must be. I can't be the only mage in all of Tevinter who would push for reform if reform was on offer. But they tend to meet with a sticky end fairly quickly if they express those kinds of opinions," Dorian said, with a frown. "Why?"

"I was just thinking," Blackwall said mildly, "it would be a shame if you never got to put that mind of yours to good use in a fancy mage college. The Maker knows it's difficult to live as an exile."

"Why yes, I am rather sharp, aren't I?" Dorian said, but Blackwall could see that the compliment had pleased him. "And besides, the south isn't all that bad, I suppose. It has its moments."

"Like Fereldan beer?" Blackwall asked, smirking at him.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dorian said loftily.

"You're not as subtle as you think you are."

"Maker's breath, no one has ever accused me of being subtle before," Dorian said with a laugh. "Perish the thought." He stood and stretched, catlike, and then turned toward the fire. "Blackwall, what in the world is that?"

The charred carving was still sitting where he'd left it.

"It's—it's just something I was making."

"And what happened to it?" Dorian asked, striding over to pick it up and examine it. "What a shame, there's such beautiful detail here. A coat of paint might hide the worst of it, though." He turned the peacock this way and that.

"There was... an incident."

Dorian grinned. "I can see that. It looks like some of my toys from when I was a child. Young mages can be, ah, rather temperamental."

"So can old ones," Blackwall muttered, and his heart skipped a beat as Dorian smirked and let a flame flare at his fingertips, just for a moment.

"Who are you calling old, old man?"

This was dangerous, this flirting. It was foolish to think they could be friends, not when they always came back to this. Blackwall didn't allow himself to respond, and Dorian frowned slightly, turning back to the carving.

"What are these holes for?" he asked instead, running his fingers over them.

"They were for... for the tail feathers," Blackwall said, and wondered if Dorian would even remember. It had been a foolish endeavour to begin with. A flight of fancy.

"Tail feathers?" Dorian said sharply, his head snapping up. It was clear from his expression that he did remember. "Is this a peacock?"

"It was a peacock," Blackwall said. "I'm not sure what it is any more."

"Blackwall..." Dorian started, "Thom—did you make this for me? It's lovely." He took a step forward, placing the peacock carefully onto one of the crates. "Nobody has ever done anything like that for me before."

Blackwall was anticipating the kiss and he let himself be swept up into it. It was soft and sweet, almost chaste, and Dorian's hands were warm where they embraced him.

"Dorian, please," Blackwall said after a few moments, breaking the kiss. "I can't do this. I don't want just sex. I want you, but I want more than that."

Dorian's eyes were very wide when he turned his face to Blackwall's. To Thom's. He held his breath.

"Find me after your Joining," Dorian said, and turned on his heel and left.

*

Despite Sigrun's best efforts, Thom Rainier remained the only Warden recruit at Skyhold. Perhaps everyone else was too cowed by what they'd seen at Adamant, or by his own betrayals, and the exile of the Orlesian Wardens had not given them a chance to redeem themselves in the smallfolk's eyes.

Sigrun had a solemn expression on her face when she turned with the silver Joining chalice in her hands. It was filled with red liquid much too thick and dark to be wine.

"What is this?" he asked, already fearing he knew the answer.

"Archdemon blood," she said, meeting his gaze defiantly. "Almost the last of what remains from the Fifth Blight."

"I'm to drink darkspawn blood?" Blackwall said, appalled. "But isn't this poison?"

"It may kill you. It will change you. And you will be fully corrupted by the darkspawn taint eventually, it's just slower. That's when Grey Wardens hear their Calling, and go to the Deep Roads to die."

Blood magic. This was blood magic. All of his illusions about Wardens were crashing down around him. But Sigrun had said that if he came this far, he would join or he would die. His eyes were drawn to the twin daggers at her belt. He gave her a curt nod, and she nodded at him in return.

Sigrun took a deep breath. "Join us, brothers and sisters," she said, and Blackwall keenly felt the lack of any fellow recruits. "Join us in the shadows, where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day, we shall join you." She held his gaze as she offered him the chalice. "Thom Rainier, step forward."

Thom drank, and then knew only darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I'm not some Fereldan tavern wench you're courting, Blackwall," he said._

_Confused flashes of light. Flickering images of armies massing in the dark. The spark of a spell, the clash of a sword. Something calls to him, in a voice that he feels rather than hears, that seeps into his very bones. Fear, primal fear. They turn to him, a thousand eyes in the abyss—_

Blackwall awoke with a gasp.

"Oh thank fuck. I thought you were a goner, and you still owe me three pissing sovereigns."

He opened his eyes to see Sera's pale, worried face above him. Her tone and expression belied the lightness of her words.

"Sera," he said, and his throat rasped like he had swallowed stones. "What—" He sat up, head spinning. Someone had put him in a bed in an unfamiliar room. The mattress was soft underneath him and it felt wrong, somehow, after all that time spent sleeping on the ground.

"You're all joined and stuff," she said. "Do you feel Warden-y?"

He felt hungry. Ravenous, in fact. Every part of his body felt strange, as if he had suddenly become more aware of it; he could almost feel the taint creeping through his veins, a darkness inside him, a slow-acting poison. The thought made him shudder.

"I don't know," he said at last. "I feel... odd."

"You are odd," she said, and gave him a lopsided grin. "Sigrun said you weren't dead but—dunno. It's weird, innit? This whole thing. Didn't know if you'd wake up all... demony and wrong."

He wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't. Drinking darkspawn blood—nothing about the Wardens had turned out the way he had pictured it. He shook his head to clear it.

"Course, Sparkly-arse said you couldn't bust out in demons 'cause you're not a mage," Sera went on, "but what does he know? He spends more time combing his stupid moustache and worrying about whether his shoes match his staff."

"Dorian was here?" Blackwall asked. "What—how long have I been asleep?"

"Hours," Sera said, settling on the bed next to him. "Sigrun said sometimes it takes people that way. Whatever mystical shite they did to you." She gave him a sidelong look. "You are all right, yeah? It sounded like—it sounded bad. Nightmares, right? You were screaming."

"I don't know if I'm all right," he said honestly. "I suppose we'll find out." He found her hand on the bed and gave it a squeeze. "Thanks. For being here."

"Yeah, well," she said, pulling a face, "if you'd been asleep any longer I was gonna shave your beard off." But she gave him a pleased smile all the same.

Blackwall grinned at her. This was familiar. This was something he could do. "Pah. Sigrun this and Sigrun that. I know why you're really here."

She stuck out her tongue at him and Blackwall laughed, feeling light all of a sudden. At least he wasn't dead, despite everything, despite the taint.

A cough from the doorway made them both turn. Sigrun's lips were quirked in a smile and he wondered how much of that she'd overheard.

"Good to see you're up and about, Thom," she said. "There are some... things we should discuss. Uh, privately," she added, shooting an apologetic look at Sera, who grumbled but left the room with a final glance at Blackwall.

"So!" Sigrun said, turning to him with a grin. "Time to tell you all the stuff I couldn't say before."

*

The feeling of strangeness did not wear off after a few hours. Blackwall's (Thom, he was Warden Thom now, he had to remember that. Not Warden Blackwall and not Thom Rainier) head was reeling with all that Sigrun had told him. He fancied he could feel a faint scratching in the back of his mind, an awareness that, deep under the earth, darkspawn were gathered in the shadowy places. He had seen them in the dreams. And heard the voices calling to him—the Old Gods. No wonder the Wardens had been driven mad by Corypheus and his false Calling. He felt a hot stab of shame when he remembered the way he had dismissed it when the Inquisitor had asked, had pronounced himself stronger, more focused. Lies upon lies.

The hunger was becoming difficult to ignore, a constant gnawing at his insides the like of which he had never felt before, so he made his way down to the kitchens to find some food. That was where Dorian found him a little while later, devouring a huge platter of bread and cheese as a number of elves stood around watching him with frightened eyes, whispering behind their hands and giving him a wide berth.

"Your friend Sigrun said I would find you here," Dorian said as he swept into the room with his usual flourish. "I'm not sure why she was so certain."

"It's the—it's a Warden thing," Blackwall said, feeling a pang of regret at the necessity to return to keeping secrets. "It's a side-effect of the Joining. Hunger."

"And here I was thinking this was some heretofore undiscovered passion of yours for Orlesian cheese," Dorian said, sounding amused. He glanced at the assembled elves and lowered his voice. "It was magic, then? The ritual? It's altered you." He perched on the edge of the table next to where Blackwall was sitting and looked him up and down, concern evident in his gaze.

"Aye, it has," Blackwall said, dodging the question of the nature of that change. Dorian's hand landed on his arm, and they looked at each other for a long moment. The memory of their last conversation was sharp in Blackwall's mind, and the air between them felt charged, crackling with tension. He was acutely aware of the eyes of the servants upon them.

"Sera said you came to see me," Blackwall said eventually, for want of something better to say, something that he could at least say here in front of these prying eyes and ears.

Dorian glanced down at his hands. "Just academic curiosity about the nature of the ritual, you know," he said airily. "Sera was quite concerned about you. Kept asking about the potential for possession. She is rather, ah, single minded, when it comes to magic."

"Sera was concerned?" Blackwall said slyly. To his delight, Dorian flushed.

"I suppose I may have also had... some small interest in ensuring you didn't die," he said, and when he met Blackwall's gaze, his eyes were full of warmth.

"About what I said the other day—" Blackwall started, but Dorian shook his head.

"Not here."

"Drinks at the Herald's, then?" he asked, and grinned, remembering that first, unintentional offer he'd made to Dorian all those weeks ago.

"I was rather hoping you might visit me in my quarters later," Dorian said softly, with a smile sharp with promise. "I'd like to test that legendary Grey Warden stamina, if you're amenable."

Blackwall's belly gave a hopeful swoop that had nothing at all to do with Warden hunger.

*

Though it made Thom feel foolish, he spent some time on his appearance in preparation to meet with Dorian. He had a hot bath drawn in one of Skyhold's cavernous rooms and scrubbed his skin until it was red and raw, though even that could not quite cleanse the feeling of taint and wrongness that seemed to lurk just under the surface. He examined his beard in a looking glass he borrowed from Sera's cabinet, and trimmed the wilder ends of his hair with an engraved silver razor that had lain unmolested in the bottom of his pack for a very long time, whilst Sera cackled behind him and told him he had gone soft. Perhaps he had. After some consideration, he kept the beard mostly as it was; it might have begun as a disguise, but he had grown to like it. It was as much a part of him now as Blackwall was.

With his blood singing with anticipation, he made his way to Dorian's door with a posy he had picked impulsively from the chantry garden whilst Mother Giselle watched him with a strange, calculating look. Dorian's eyes lit up when he opened the door, though he seemed confused and flustered by the gift.

"I'm not some Fereldan tavern wench you're courting, Blackwall," he said, clearly aiming for disdain but his eyes were bright as he ran one of his long fingers gently over the petals of a daisy.

"Never said you were," Blackwall said mildly. "If you don't like flowers, I won't bring you any more."

"I didn't say that," Dorian said quickly, and Blackwall laughed. It was so typical of the man to complain about things he actually liked. Southern vulgarities indeed.

He sobered, though, and met Dorian's gaze. "I, ah... I would like to be," Blackwall said quietly. "Courting you, that is." He felt exposed, as though he were offering his whole heart on a silver salver, horribly aware that Dorian could incinerate it with a flick of his fingers like the evil woods witches in the stories he'd been told as a boy.

Dorian was quiet for a long moment. "I can't say I know what that would look like. I've never—there's never been more than a quick tumble before, and rarely even more than once with the same man. I'm not sure how to do this. How to be more than that."

"I'm not sure it has to be anything in particular. We could just be us."

"Is it really so easy here in the south? In Tevinter..." He trailed off, and Blackwall gave him an encouraging nod. "In Tevinter, a man might fuck a male slave and occasionally another nobleman, but only behind closed doors, and never anything more than that. Never—never romance. Companionship. I was to marry a woman. To do aught else would have been—unthinkable. I don't..." He gave a helpless shrug.

Blackwall took one of Dorian's hands in his, and Dorian looked down at their linked fingers as if he had never seen them before.

"Dorian," he said, "I'm not going to tell you I have all the answers, because I don't. I'm not the most intelligent man. No," he said, as Dorian made a small noise of protest, "I'm not, else I would have made better choices in my life. But there's one thing I know, and that is: you deserve romance. You deserve companionship. If not from me, then from someone."

Dorian made a raw, wounded sound.

"I'm not noble," Blackwall went on, running his thumb gently across Dorian's fingers, "and I can't promise that either of us will live to see beyond this war, but that's no reason not to try."

"What about the Wardens?" Dorian said. "Won't you have to go to Weisshaupt? What about your duty?"

"Duty isn't the only thing there is."

"I'd like to go back to Tevinter," Dorian said. There was hope on his face now, as he raised his eyes to Blackwall's, though the subject of Tevinter was still a prickly one. "The reforms we talked about—"

"If you go back to Tevinter, you could be killed—"

"Any of us could be killed at any moment," Dorian said, and there was an air of defiance in his voice.

"Then let's at least have this," Blackwall said. "If this—if I'm something you want, we could try. We'll deal with the rest as it comes. Weisshaupt. Tevinter. Corypheus. Any of it."

Dorian gazed at him, clearly struggling with himself. "You tidied your hair," he said after a long pause, apropos of nothing.

He barked a laugh. "Aye, and I took a bath. And not in the horse trough."

"Will wonders never cease?" Dorian murmured, and leaned forward to kiss him until they were both gasping for breath.

*

"What are we doing?" Dorian said, in that tone of voice he used when complaining about vinegary wine or the Inquisitor's penchant for traipsing around caves. "Where in the Maker's name are you taking me, Blackwall?"

Thom laughed. It was only 'Blackwall' now when Dorian was irritated with him. Most of the time it was 'Thom'; that was the name Dorian moaned against his skin when they fucked, tangled together in the big bed in the quarters that now belonged to both of them, or whispered in the quiet of the night when they clung to each other through Thom's nightmares, Dorian's body pressed to his back and his hands gentle in Thom's hair.

"Be quiet and trust me, for once in your life," he said, grinning.

Dorian grumbled, but allowed himself to be led up to the battlements, to a quiet spot away from the usual bustle of Skyhold with a spectacular view over the mountains. He started when he heard the music, and shot a sharp look at Thom.

"Is that the bard from the tavern?" he said incredulously.

"She's got a thing for Sera. I promised to put in a good word."

"She'll have some difficulty competing with Sigrun."

"She doesn't need to know that," Thom said, and Dorian laughed.

"I always forget how calculating you can be. You'd be perfectly at home in Tevinter, you know," he said. "Are you going to tell me what we're doing here? And why it needed music?"

"Romance," Thom said, and swept into a ridiculous bow. "Would you care to dance?"

Dorian rolled his eyes, but he was smiling when he took Thom's proffered hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, friends, that's all she wrote. I have a couple more things I'm interested in writing for this pairing, and also perhaps some other stuff in this verse (the Sigrun/Sera fic of my heart, for one, and then at some point the sequel where Warden realities sink in and snubbing Starkhaven comes back to bite the Inquisitor in the ass). But thanks for reading, and especially thanks to those of you who left encouraging comments on every chapter. You're awesome. :)
> 
> You can follow me on [tumblr](http://originally.tumblr.com) if you're so inclined.


End file.
